Chapter 18: Day 18

Of the three books, two were manuals on cultivation methods, and one was a manual on pill refinement.

One of the cultivation manuals was not even a Demonic Art, and it was only at the level of the Qi Condensation stage, so it was useless.

But the other cultivation manual and the pill refinement manual were quite interesting.

Among them, the cultivation manual most attracted the girl’s interest.

“The Great Heart-Devouring Power Skill.”

The Great Heart-Devouring Power Skill.

Literally, a type of Demonic Art that increases one’s power by eating human hearts.

Eating hearts.

Isn’t that method exactly the same as her diet?

With that thought, the girl scanned through the Great Heart-Devouring Power Skill with eyes full of interest.

And then, the girl realized.

Why she possessed such vast and powerful Demonic Qi.

Come to think of it, no matter how much she had worked hard to accumulate magic power, that is, Demonic Qi, for four years at the White Snake Gate, and even though that effort eventually led to the increase of Demonic Qi.

The Demonic Qi that the girl possessed at that time was far too much for just four years of effort.

Even if the girl had an absolute talent for Demonic Arts.

But after scanning through the Great Heart-Devouring Power Skill, she understood why she could possess such Demonic Qi. The question was answered.

The act of tearing out and eating the hearts of corpses to survive in solitude.

Through the method she took simply to survive, the girl had instinctively cultivated the Great Heart-Devouring Power Skill that no one had taught her.

How that was possible, even the girl herself didn’t know.

Only after reading the Great Heart-Devouring Power Skill in front of her could she understand that it was simply ‘that was the case’.

The other book.

The Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill also attracted the girl’s interest.

The corpse poison that filled the cave when she entered.

And the many rotten, decaying corpses that were producing that corpse poison.

They were all ingredients for making this ‘Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill’.

Perhaps that idiot was trying to break through his stagnant cultivation level with this Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill.

The Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill, which could only be made by melting the souls of a thousand people screaming in endless pain and despair, and mixing it with the corpse poison from the corpses of those who died in agony, could certainly lead a Demonic Beast at the Foundation Establishment stage to the Golden Core stage.

Of course.

“It’s a very dangerous method, though.”

Breaking through the Foundation Establishment stage with the Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill.

It was a very dangerous method.

Even if one was lucky enough to advance to the Golden Core stage, the ensuing heavenly tribulation would definitely not be ordinary.

But.

“Would it be possible?”

The girl muttered after thinking for a long time.

The Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill.

After a quick glance, it was already on the verge of completion.

What was lacking was exactly twenty-two souls and corpse poison equivalent to twenty-two corpses.

Would it be possible?

But it’s too dangerous.

Still, isn’t it worth taking the risk?

“Considering the deal.”

Muttering that, the girl unknowingly stroked the Ninefold Demonic Mask on her face.

She didn’t have time.

She was able to escape from the White Snake Gate through the deal with this strange object, but it was only a reprieve.

Even at this moment, death was closing in.

If she couldn’t become stronger as quickly as possible and pay the price of the deal. This strange object would eventually take her life.

Indeed.

“Life is a gamble.”

Muttering again, the girl emitted dark purple light from her eyes and looked at the entrance of the cave.

Aaaaaaaagh!

Argh!

P, please save me!

We were wrong! We were wrong! We were wrong!

A cauldron with boiling contents even without a flame.

Around it, a total of twenty-two rugged bandits screamed in endless pain.

Really.

“Why are you doing this!”

The bandit leader shouted.

He couldn’t understand.

He couldn’t comprehend.

Why. Why did they have to suffer such a terrible thing in such a terrible place!

They hadn’t done anything to deserve such a terrible thing.

Of course, they had lived as bandits, so they couldn’t say they were completely clean.

“W, we didn’t do anything to you!”

But at least, he could swear to the sky, no, to his deceased parents, that they hadn’t done anything to the monster in the guise of a girl who had captured them.

Meanwhile, at the bandit leader’s desperate cry, the girl who was kneading the corpses according to the method in the manual on how to make the Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill.

“Huh? That’s true.”

Nodding as if agreeing with the bandit leader’s words.

A very slight glimmer of hope appeared in the leader’s eyes at that affirmation.

“But, it’s not like you have to do something to me for me to use you as ‘ingredients’, right?”

Chills!

The monster in the guise of a girl, who turned to look at him and speak.

The bandit leader trembled as his eyes met the monster’s.

Those eyes were not the eyes that looked at him as a ‘human’.

Nor were they the eyes that looked at insignificant insects.

Those eyes were like.

‘They are very inorganic eyes, as if looking at a useful tool!’

Only then could the leader accept.

That his life was over.

That monster would never let him, no, them live.

If he had known this would happen, he should have.

‘I should have just abandoned my subordinates and run away.’

What on earth was he thinking, not running away immediately and returning to the camp?

What on earth was he thinking, returning to the camp to treat his subordinates with broken limbs?

Clearly, his mind must have been clouded.

No, perhaps that monster manipulated him to return to the camp.

The reason?

The reason was simple, wasn’t it?

For this current situation.

So, while the bandit leader was drowning in endless despair.

The girl started killing the bandit leader and the bandits he had brought with him one by one.

The bandits died one by one with terrible expressions.

The girl collected each of their corpses, kneaded them with care, and then arranged them around the cauldron according to a certain rule.

One peculiar thing was that the corpses placed in that way quickly rotted, decayed, and emitted a terrible corpse poison.

And as that corpse poison filled the cave, the speed at which the bandits died accelerated.

The girl watched that scene and let out a low exclamation of ‘Ooh!’.

One by one. One by one.

Each time a bandit died, their soul escaped from their corpse and was sucked into the cauldron.

The sucked-in soul screamed in endless pain, and then melted with a look of despair, mixing with the contents already in the cauldron.

Then, when the corpse poison from the already dead corpses was added.

A dark green Demonic Qi emanated from the contents of the cauldron.

It was being completed.

The Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill.

The elixir made by melting the souls of a thousand ordinary people and mixing it with the corpse poison from a thousand corpses was being completed.

What was left was.

‘Just one.’

999 souls were melted and mixed in the cauldron.

The corpse poison from 999 corpses was added to it.

What was left was just one soul.

Just the corpse poison from one corpse.

But.

“Why won’t you die already?”

The girl frowned in discomfort and said.

The bandit leader, who remained until the very end, had no intention of dying.

His mouth constantly screamed.

His eyes were filled with only endless despair.

Nevertheless, the bandit leader continued to cling to his tenuous life.

The cave was already filled with the corpse poison left over from being used as ingredients for the Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill.

That bandit leader was poisoned by that corpse poison, yet he had no intention of dying, no matter what he did.

She couldn’t forcibly kill him and take his soul and corpse either.

The soul used as an ingredient for the Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill must not be forcibly killed.

If she forcibly took the bandit leader’s life to complete the Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill a little faster, all the waiting until now would be for naught.

It was a situation where she could neither do this nor that, and the girl was constantly showing an unpleasant expression.

“Ugh….”

A short groan escaped from the bandit leader, who seemed like he would die but remained alive until the end.

At the same time, the bandit leader’s head fell, and his soul flowed out from his body.

“Finally-!”

The bandit leader who had become a corpse.

The bandit leader’s soul flowing out from the corpse.

Seeing that scene, the girl jumped up and shouted.

Finally, the last ingredient was ready.

The girl was happy at that fact, but then her expression contorted.

Something. Something was strange.

No, the girl instinctively realized that something was wrong.

On the soul of the bandit leader that flowed out from the dead corpse, a mark was engraved.

It looked like a human eye at first glance, and from another angle, it looked like the eye of a crow that eats corpses.

And the girl knew that shape.

“You f*cking bastard!”

Kurr!

As the girl let out an angry shout, the cave shook.

At the same time, the girl reached out her hand.

The girl’s hand, which moved like lightning, moved with the strange movements of a snake towards the bandit leader’s soul.

At the same time.

Ninefold Hell Body Explosion Art, Soul-Eating Demonic Hand.

The power of the Ninefold Hell Body Explosion Art was activated.

Through the power of the Ninefold Hell Body Explosion Art, the girl’s hand, which had become pale like a corpse, reached out to devour the bandit leader’s soul.

But.

Screeeeeeeech-!

Just before the girl’s hand could touch it, a terrible shriek erupted from the bandit leader’s soul.

That shriek shook the girl’s soul and body for a moment, creating a small, very small gap, and the cauldron did not miss that gap and swallowed the bandit leader’s soul that had shrieked.

“F*ck!”

The girl cursed at that sight.

But, regardless.

The cauldron that swallowed the bandit leader’s soul then swallowed the corpse poison from the decayed bandit leader’s corpse.

Flash!

It emitted a gloomy black light.

The gloomy black light that filled the cave quickly subsided.

And in the cauldron that emitted that black light, only one black elixir with a terrible poison was left.

The Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill.

A terrible elixir made from the souls of a thousand people and the corpse poison from their corpses.

The terrible elixir, made through a terrible method that no human would dare to attempt, scattered a faint presence.

But.

“You f*cking bastard!”

The girl didn’t even glance at the completed Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill, she just let out her boiling anger.

After all, the one in the cauldron.

The completed Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill was not a ‘complete’ Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill.

No, to be more precise, it was an ‘elixir’ and a ‘poison’.

An elixir allowed only to one person.

The Demonic Beast who had planned everything from the beginning but died a vain death at the hands of the girl.

For any other cultivator or Demonic Beast.

If anyone else used it, it would be a terrible poison that would melt their body in an instant.

The reason that was possible was simple.

The bandit leader’s soul, which was the last ingredient.

That was the problem.

Really.

“To think he did such a f*cked up thing.”

The girl, who had been venting her anger for a long time, calmed down and muttered.

The mark engraved on the bandit leader’s soul.

It was a kind of insurance.

A measure taken through the ‘assumption’ that someone might find this cave and take the Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill that was on the verge of completion.

That bug bastard must have thought.

The completion of the Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill is imminent.

But the only ordinary people to use as ingredients to complete the Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill are the bandits nearby.

If all the bandits are killed and this place is found, the Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill, which missed its timing, cannot be completed.

If the bandits are left alive.

And if those bandits are used as ingredients. Let’s engrave a mark on the ingredient that will be used so that the completed Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill can only be used by oneself.

The girl, who realized that fact too late, could only vent her vain anger and curses at the dead, and the bastard she had killed.

That Demonic Beast probably didn’t know that the measure he took to prevent it from being stolen would lead to this result.

Also, as a result, the girl who could not use the completed Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill.

“F*uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!!”

Boom-!

Cursing, the girl kicked the cauldron.